The development of the global merchant fleet is affected by a very broad range of interwoven supply and demand factors, including shipping and commodity cycles, investor sentiment, regulatory concerns, yard capacity and so on. Another factor is shore-side infrastructure projects, which can be tricky to disentangle from the wider web, though this influence is a little clearer on, for example, the LNG carrier sector…

Shipping is a cyclical industry and for shipyards the current trough in newbuilding orders has put further pressure on capacity. While the scale of the current surplus appears huge, this is not the first time that the shipbuilding industry has grappled with excess capacity. Looking back to the past, and specifically the shipbuilding cycle of the late 1970s, what can be learnt from previous experience?

Enjoying The Highs

The shipbuilding industry has a habit of ramping up production capacity rapidly. In 2010 shipyards broke all previous delivery records, outputting 53.2m CGT (in dwt and GT terms deliveries peaked in 2011). Compared to 2004, early into the most recent ordering boom, this was a 122% increase in deliveries. Looking back to the mid-1970s, there was a similar burst of activity as strong newbuild demand saw yard output double between 1972 and 1976 to 10.2m CGT.

What Goes Up…

As in the late 1970s, economic downturn and its impact on the shipping markets led to a significant fall in yard deliveries after their peak in 2010. The initial decrease in output was faster and sharper in the 1970s, with deliveries declining by 64% between 1976 (Year 0) and 1979 (Year 3). The current cycle has seen a more gradual fall in deliveries, declining 34% between 2010 and 2014 with 178 yards reported to have completed delivery of their orderbooks in 2012 (Year 2).

…Must Come Down

Shipyard output is still in decline. Though the surge in ordering in 2013 has helped support delivery volumes, current estimates are for an 18% fall in shipyard output in 2018. Many anticipate that the current delivery cycle will dip around 2019 (Year 9), suggesting a shorter cycle than before. It also seems unlikely that delivery levels will fall by as much as in the late 1980s, as the same pattern would imply a further 47% reduction in output from 2018 estimates to around 15m CGT.

Time To Recover?

After the 1970s crash, it took over a decade for shipbuilding output to recover. Today, following one of the weakest levels of newbuild contracting on record in 2016, the overcapacity which has characterised the global shipbuilding industry in recent years is even more prominent. While 353 shipbuilders currently have a vessel (1,000 GT or above) on order, almost half of these shipyards have failed to win a contract since the start of 2016.

If the current shipbuilding cycle were to follow the same pattern as in the 1970s, we would only be 7-8 years in, with a full recovery still some way away. However, the situation will improve if contracting levels increase. Trade growth, the replacement of older, less efficient ships and stricter environmental regulation could support yard capacity in the future through a recovery in newbuild demand.

Looking back at the shipbuilding cycle of the 1970s, it is clear that the industry has faced similar challenges in the past. It seems unlikely that we have reached the bottom of the current cycle, and pressure to remove capacity remains. Shipbuilders will be hoping that newbuild demand drivers come through quickly to stem the duration of this particular downturn.

After a long cycle of build-up in capacity in the 2000s, shipyards hit a new peak in global output in 2010. Since then, the impact of reduced vessel ordering on shipbuilders worldwide has been a key issue for the industry, and it’s clear that global output has dropped significantly and shipyard capacity has diminished. But how far can those shipyards still active look ahead today?

Looking Forward

‘Forward cover’ is one basic indicator of the volume of work that shipyards have on order, calculated by dividing the total orderbook by the last year’s output (in CGT). Unsurprisingly, after a period of extremely low ordering in 2016, forward cover has shortened. Currently, global forward cover stands at 2.3 years having declined throughout 2016, as the orderbook shrank by 25% in CGT terms. Global forward cover was as low as 2.1 years at the start of 2013 (but delivery volumes in 2012 were 37% higher than in 2016) and peaked at 5.6 years in 2008.

Looking around the shipbuilding world, yards in Korea currently have the lowest level of cover at 1.5 years. European yards, meanwhile, bucked the trend in 2016, increasing their forward cover on the back of cruise ship orders (and falling production volumes) to 4.2 years.

Less To Go Round

Fewer fresh orders have also led to a greater number of yards ending the year without receiving a single contract. During 2005-08, the number of yards to take at least one order was on average equivalent to 87% of the number of yards active (with at least one unit on order) at the start of the year. In 2009-15, with ordering generally lower, the figure averaged 49%. In 2016 this fell further to 28%, with just 133 yards receiving an order. In China, 48 yards (26 of which were state-backed) won an order in 2016 compared to 284 yards in 2007. In Japan, 22 yards took an order in 2016 compared to 60 as recently as 2015. In Korea, 11 shipyards took an order last year.

Out Of Work?

Whilst many yards have tried to cope with the lower demand environment by slowing production or working outside their traditional product range, the statistics clearly point to huge challenges. In 2016, 117 yards delivered the final unit on their orderbook. The peak production level of these yards, many of them smaller builders, totals around 4m CGT. However, 163 yards are scheduled to deliver their current orderbook by the end of 2017 (although in reality slippage may mean some of the work runs on past the end of the year). Statistically, this represents 43% of the number of yards active at the start of the year. Although these yards have been reining back capacity and outputting less in recent years, the peak production level of this set of yards totals as much as 12m CGT. Offshore builders of course face huge pressures too, with about half of those active scheduled to deliver their final unit on order this year.

Global shipyard output and capacity have fallen significantly since the peak years. However, many remaining yards still don’t need to look too far ahead to see the end of their current workload. The shipbuilding industry will be hoping to see a return to a more active newbuilding market sooner rather than later.